Barbarisi: Yankees held closed-door team meeting on Monday

Via Dan Barbarisi: The Yankees held a closed-door team meeting following Monday’s loss to make sure everyone knew losing should not become part of the clubhouse culture. “This meeting yesterday, it was to make sure that we’re all together, working toward that goal, and not getting off track and saying, ‘[losing] is going to be how it is. If we start thinking bad thoughts, we’re not going to be successful. I think we kind of got a little bit of that, where we started feeling sorry for ourselves, and we can’t do that, because then it doesn’t work,” said one veteran player.

Joe Girardi, Robinson Cano, and Derek Jeter spoke at the meeting. The message was “the playoffs start today” and “we need to ratchet up the intensity level down the stretch,” more or less. Pretty typical team meeting stuff, really. These meetings always seem to get overblown and they rarely make a difference. Example: last night’s loss. The Yankees are not losing because they’ve adapted that kind of mentality in the clubhouse. They losing because they just aren’t all that good.

They don’t need meetings. They need Roy Hobbs, who would have walked out.

Wheels

nice.

lightSABR

Honestly, Mike, are you trying to suggest that a team’s collective wRC+ might matter more than its grit and will to win? You’re destroying the narrative!

trr

(Don’t tell anyone , but you need both to succeed)

Lukaszek

2011 Red Sox and their three 6+ WAR players would like to have a word with Mike

Steve

Girardi gives Ichiro and Granderson a day off at the same time, enough said This team is old and needs some good hungry young ball players and a new Mgr.

lightSABR

This team is oldbad and needs some good hungry young ballplayers.

Fixed that for you.

trr

Team is old AND bad in all honesty, and the whole organization needs a new direction and a new sense of purpose .

I am by no means a Girardi basher, but if the team truly collapses, he may pay the price under the old axiom that it’s easier to fire one manager than 25 players

Kosmo

I`ve never warmed up to Girardi´s managing style but I doubt he´d be the fallguy for this seasons travesty.

JMK

Yeah, considering the talent level I’d say Girardi has done a damn fine job. The Yankees have fielded a AAA lineup most nights. That’s not his fault.

And I’m not even a big Girardi fan (he’s mediocre to slightly below average in my book).

dan

got that right…you might say they suck…d……..

D$1184

Nice fix. This team doesn’t need a new manager. I look at the roster Girardi has had to work with most nights this summer and I’m very much reminded of this dialogue from Bull Durham:

“We are 8-16. How the hell did we ever win 8?

It’s a miracle.

It’s a miracle.”

King of Fruitless Hypotheticals

That’s the problem. You know what this team is?

Lollygaggers.

Kosmo

I think at the meeting it was Cano who said “ we need to ratchet up the intensity level“.

Nuke Guy (Knoxvillain)

That is all Brett Gardner.

ropeadope

…and fell to the floor in hysterics before the final word left his mouth, which kinda negated it’s intended purpose.

dan

way to hustle….spit some seeds….

forensic

heh, that should fix everything, and clearly it has given their performance since then. It’s almost like it has nothing to do with their mindset but rather that they’re a pretty bad team in general, at this point. 10 games under .500 over almost the last 3 months. Good luck having a meeting to fix that.

http://www.penuel-law.com/ Cuso

I am so humbled to be able to play the game I love.

I love the fans in Chicago.

Wheels

What’s next, bringing in Tony Robbins?

Captain Turbo

I have a suggestion for them. Decrease the suck.

Eddard

Playoffs start tonight? They ain’t going to any playoff. CC is going to serve up a couple dingers tonight and lose 7-2. They are now the laughing stock of the AL. Everyone knows Houston is bad, but they have a shoe string budget. They’re supposed to be bad. Fire Cashman.

Kiko Jones

An ace who, of late, has pitched like a bad no.5; a veteran starter who clearly has very little left in the tank; a former hot prospect who’s never lived up to the hype. That’s 3/5 of the Yankee starting rotation. If you can only count on 2 of your starters, what happens when one—or both—have a bad game during the same cycle? Nova is due for a bad start. And Kuroda has been so good that even on the days when he’s faltered—like Tuesday night—it was more about the lack of offense than his struggles.

And speaking of which, an offense with Cano, Soriano, Granderson and even a diminished A-Rod—who’s been seeing the ball pretty well, it seems—has to rise to the occasion NOW. No excuses.

It looks bad, but I’m still hoping for that WC, although I don’t see them surviving the sudden death game. Ugh.

JMK

The logic of a player “being due” for a good start or a bad start doesn’t add up. He’s pitched well not based on luck but because he has plus stuff, he’s not walking batters and he’s hitting his spots. He’s only “due” to pitch a game.

Re the lineup: there are totally valid excuses; it’s not a good lineup, even with those guys in there.

Kiko Jones

I’m thinking law of averages: how long before even a stellar pitcher on a great run has a bad outing? The opposite also applies: how long before a stellar pitcher on a bad run has a solid or even great outing?

It stands to reason that a proven, non-injured, talent will break a particular run, whether it’s a positive or negative one.

dasani

This team needs a complete house cleaning from top to bottom,including Cashman,however they are stuck with aging players with bad contracts and nowhere to move them. This team is going to be lost in baseballs abyss for some time.

W.B. Mason Williams

I held a closed door meeting myself so I wouldn’t wake the whole house up with my screams of rage at this team.

dan

I heard those screams……….

http://None Dave Aja

This team has had no consistency and when athey get someone back they aren’t there long possibly moving them up to soon? But we do have A Rod back “the piece of crap” ! I would play him every game without rest , at third base and hope that he injures himself again . He wants to play let him play. He has contributed nothing to the team since he has been there. It has always been about Alex and the money. Well if he wants to play , play him play him into the ground the sooner this distraction is gone the better.

Mr. Roth

“He has contributed nothing to the team since he has been there.”

2009 called and said that you’re a damned fool.

dalelama

Arod did make a small contribution that year. Not $25M worth but some. It was Damon and Matsui who won the WS though.

Mr. Roth

“Arod did make a small contribution that year.”

Did you happen to watch the postseason that year, or were you off meditating in Tibet with your head up your ass?

gc

You are such a fucking idiot, it’s not even funny. Douchebag! Go suck a tailpipe.

Mac

There may be a value for money argument, but since coming to the Yankees in 2004 A-Rod is 5th among position players and 6th in MLB in fWAR.

dalelama

Only the Dal E predicted this debacle!!!!

JW

You didn’t “predict” shit, fucker. Now go back to the basement with your Arod blow up doll.

PED’s

It’s pretty simple, Robinson Fishsticks Tilaps just needs to write on the white board in the clubhouse how everyone is overreacting and that everything will be fine. How silly people are for possibly suggesting that the team SUCKS major tuna. That usually solves everything, amarite…

Bob Michaels

It ain`t over till it`s over, or is it over?

dan

it is over…

Mac

It’s silly to go around from the outside speculating about what factors caused something with no evidence.

Furthermore, the whole “Yankees are less talented than other teams” meme isn’t so true anymore. They’ve been playing the White Sox and Padres, who aren’t incredibly talented. They’ve also added Soriano, Granderson, and A-Rod to their line-up. It’s a small sample, yet one can easily argue that they should have won more games against those two teams on talent alone. I know stats aren’t your thing but the “luck” influencing small samples can include intangible factors like clubhouse culture. Over a large enough sample it’s probably not going to be important. Still, there can certainly be instances where it is. This may or may not be one. For you to pretend that you know is just silly.

dalelama

What ever happened to Tex? That guy has been about useful as a diaper full of poop this year.

Nuke Guy (Knoxvillain)

Season ending wrist surgery. I don’t think it has been confirmed as season ending, but he isn’t coming back. If he comes back at all it would be in mid-September and by that time the Yankees will be 10 games out of a wild card spot so they might as well have him sit out and rest.

Wheels

He’s hurt dude.

dalelama

Has anyone wondered how much our trainers suck? Even my high school soccer coach ran us through warm ups so we never pulled a muscle. How guys can “strain” a calf when they know they are going to play never ceases to amaze me.

JW

Oh, you played high school soccer? Yeah, that’s the same thing as MLB. What was I thinking?

http://www.penuel-law.com/ Cuso

In fairness, high school soccer might be a little more rigorous. But you’re also talking about younger humans – more capable of bouncing back from injury quickly.

jtb10182

Is it Cashman’s fault? Of course we are the Josef Goebbels propaganda machine